AFW

By Jason
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Saturday, October 10, 2009
" A Great First Time Catch "

We had planned for at least a day to go fishing today.  The idea was to get out on the water by sunrise and hit one of the reefs.  Well 7am came and went, then 8am.  Well we got up and the motivation was when I said the boat leaves at 9am!  So we were off by 9:20am.  On board today would be just Karla & Jason.

We stopped just inside of Sanibel Causeway Span A to catch bait, and there were loads of it.  We caught several hundred shiners after just a few casts.   In all of that was 1 medium small pinfish.

A windy morning, it was becoming apparent that we wouldn't be going offshore.  So we drifted the flats on the other side of the causeway where we have caught trout before.  The tide was outgoing.  Karla hooked up on an approx. 2 foot shark, but it broke free just before she could land it.  Also, there were several ratfish (catfish) caught.  

We headed over and anchored between Span C and the lighthouse in that 20 foot cut.  We worked this for quite some time but got not a single bite.

So then we zoomed around the lighthouse and pondered going to the Causeway Reef 5 miles away.  But knowing that we have had very little luck there, plus the waves were hitting us dead on, I was able to convince her that we should head west 11 miles to another (likely better) reef.

We got out there and got anchored.  There was only one other boat there.  Although we weren't directly over structure, we were near it.  Karla immediately started catching numerous blue runners:

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She ended up catching I believe 5 in all.  She also caught numerous half-foot pinfish.  We kept all these in the baitwell.  She caught these exclusively on squid - squid that we had caught at night last time we were out in this area.

2 blue runners died so I used the tails as bait.  But I still caught nothing, nada, zip.  

So I started using squid and began to get nibbles.  But I still could not catch a darn thing, meanwhile my partner was making me look like a bad fisherman!  I had a total of 3 poles going, including the big-boy pole loaded with numerous shiners and tipped with squid.  

We also saw the usual long fish that hover around the boat every time we are at a reef west of Sanibel.  I always thought these were King Mackerels.

I decided to take off the large hook from the bigboy pole and put on a smaller Mustad hook.   In addition, there was a kink in the metal leader.  And I know that kinks in metal leader are no good since Karla lost a potential catch last time due to a kink, so I eliminated it this time.  

Then we decided to drift since the catch slowed down.  We were in about 30 feet of water.

My "bigboy" pole was rigged with a baitcasting reel, 50lb mono, to metal leader, with a new #5 brown Mustad J hook, and a live 6 inch pinfish that Karla caught by hook earlier, hooked through the back just forward of the dorsal fin about 5 minutes earlier.

All of a sudden my bigboy pole goes ZZ.         ZZZZZZ,         ZZZZ,  

So I run over to it and FISH ON BABY!!!!  It is one of those bigguns, what I had thought was a King Mackerel.  That son of a gun ran to the left and jumped at least 5 feet out of the water and showed me the beauty and power it had.  Well it was a great fight;  I brought it in close, then it would run for 10 seconds or more, then I'd bring it in again and he'd run.  Awesome.  It was fantastic.  What a thrill.  So eventually after about 10 minutes or so I got it close to the boat with his head out of the water.  I pulled him up into the boat and was amazed at the size of this thing.

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Sweet.  At 37 inches and 13.75 pounds this had to be the best fight I've ever had.  I was very excited.  You see it is not everyday I get a fish like this, as you know if you have been reading the reports!  Karla shot video:

Suddenly I felt like I knew how to fish again!

It was decided that Karla would like to filet the fish, so we kept it.  We put it on ice and headed back.  Karla wetted her line on the way back in near Span A but only got a ratfish.

We were back on land at 5:30pm but the story doesn't end yet.

Karla filleted the fish, and she did a great job:

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Click here for video of Karla skillfully filleting this feeshy.

We were very happy with the formidable size of the two fillets.

I threw them on the grill one at a time and smoked 'em up.

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We ate one filet that night, and the rest in the days to follow.  The meat was flaky and absolutely delicious.  There were very few bones, and of those, they were big and not easy to miss.  I grilled/smoked the fleshy side of the fillet first, then flipped it and grilled/smoked the skin-side.  I highly recommend it be cooked fleshy side first, then skin side second, because the meat was so flaky.  Much of it probably would have been lost in the grill had I flipped it a third time.

I later found out it was a great barracuda, not a king mackerel as I had previously thought.  There was a concern about possible ciguatera toxin (CDC - FFW)  This is currently in discussion.  But the good news is we didn't get sick, and if I caught another one in the same area I'd likely eat it again.  But this time I would eat some and wait, before allowing the rest of the family to have it, to be sure they wouldn't get sick.  Ciguatera symptoms appear typically within 3-5 hours after fish ingestion.

This was a very good day for us.

LOL, the fish-snobs at work said, OMG, you ate that?!  To that I say, YES, and I'd do it again!

Picture in News Press Readers' Catches: source link-pic#4 - captured pdf

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